Snap Judgments: South Region Preview

There’s plenty of motivation for Kennedy Meeks and UNC after losing in the ACC Tourney semis. Of course, the Heels are looking to win one more game in the NCAA Tourney than they did last season, when they were national runners-up. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 1 North Carolina

No. 1 North Carolina

And they have the ACC Player of the Year, swingman Justin Jackson.
The key to beating Carolina is to make the game a half-court affair.
The problem is that UNC is so good at picking up the pace, all of your best efforts to slow down the game may prove to be futile. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 9 Seton Hall

It had been since 1992-93 that the Pirates made back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, when P.J. Carlesimo was the head coach.
Though sporting much less facial hair than P.J., Kevin Willard (left)
has now taken the Pirates back to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. And, because of their experience in the NCAAs in 2016, the Pirates should be better equipped to take a game in the Big Dance. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 9 Seton Hall

That's because they have the nation's leader in double-doubles, center Angel Delgado, who has racked up 26 of them. In almost every game the Pirates play, they'll have the best big man on the floor, and that usually is a recipe for winning games in March. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 9 Seton Hall

The Pirates have brawn inside, but they also have New York City toughness in the backcourt, including Brooklyn's Khadeen Carrington,
who scored a career-high 41 points in a season-defining win over Creighton on Feb. 15. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 8 Arkansas

Probably no team in the power conferences flew under the radar more than Moses Kingsley (right) and the Razorbacks did, finishing third in a very competitive Southeastern Conference. Arkansas' game with Seton Hall may very well come down to free throw shooting. While Arkansas shoots 76.2 percent as a team, 22nd in the country... (Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics)

No. 9 Seton Hall

...Seton Hall ranks 333rd, shooting an abysmal 64.3 percent. Delgado, at 55 percent from the line, is a liability on the floor if the game is close late. However, the Pirates did recently go 22-for-23 from the charity stripe in their Big East Tournament quarterfinal win over Marquette. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 5 Minnesota

Those who questioned the coaching chops of Richard Pitino going into this season sure have been silenced, as the Gophers head to the NCAA Tournament with a lot of momentum after winning 16 more games than they did all of last season. One of the main reasons for the turnaround is the interior play of Reggie Lynch (22), the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year who's second in the nation in blocked shots per game at 3.47. (ALOST)

No. 5 Minnesota

No. 12 Middle Tennessee

They're baaaack! Fans in Murfreesboro are giddy once again about the Blue Raiders, especially since Giddy Potts (left), Reggie Upshaw Jr. and Co. are back to try and replicate their bracket-busting ways after their shocking upset of No. 2 Michigan State last season.
(GoBlueRaiders.com)

No. 12 Middle Tennessee

No. 4 Butler

There's something about "The Butler Way" that always comes to the fore during tourney time, and Chris Holtmann might have done his best job yet in leading the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament after losing key figures like Kellen Dunham and Roosevelt Jones from last season's squad. (Newsday)

No. 6 Cincinnati

From afar, the Cincinnati Bearcats might be a team most people dismiss in the tournament for not playing the in-conference competition day in and day out as others in power conferences.
(Cassandra & Tony Hoose/ALOST/Cant-Miss Photography)

No. 6 Cincinnati

But discounting Mick Cronin's Bearcats would be a mistake, as,
unlike most teams under Cronin, these Bearcats are capable of scoring in bunches. Oh, and their defense is still water-tight, as they rank seventh in the country in field goal percentage defense. (Cassandra & Tony Hoose/ALOST/Cant-Miss Photography)

No. 6 Cincinnati

On offense, Cincinnati has two of the surest, safest hands in the country running the point in seniorTroy Caupain, who has 153 assists on the season to just 39 turnovers, an almost 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. (Cassandra & Tony Hoose/ALOST/Cant-Miss Photography)

No. 11 Kansas State

Aren't the Wildcats on the bubble almost every season? We know Bruce Weber's job in the Little Apple is tough, and he's done the best he can in keeping K-State in the NCAA Tournament discussion year after year. One of these days, though, he needs to make a run in the Big Dance to validate his pretty good coaching career. This year, any possible run starts in Dayton. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)

No. 11 Wake Forest

Though not necessarily the miracle that he was part of as a player in leading Kansas to the 1988 title, Danny Manning has done a remarkable job in leading the Demon Deacons back to the NCAA Tournament. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 11 Wake Forest

Probably the biggest impact of Manning's arrival in Winston Salem has been on post player John Collins, who was named First Team All-ACC and finished second behind North Carolina's Justin Jackson in the Player of the Year voting in the conference. Collins averaged 19.9 points and 9.8 rebounds while shooting over 62 percent from the field. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 3 UCLA

Lonzo Ball, you've left a lot of us speechless with your play. We wouldn't be surprised if you, as well as fellow freshman - and fellow First Team All-Pac 12 selection - T.J. Leaf, were able to lead the Bruins, who won at Rupp Arena this season, to another win against the Wildcats on their way to the Final Four. However, as good as your top-ranked scoring offense is, we think your biggest weakness, even more so than your below average defense, is...(Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

No. 3 UCLA

...your head coach. It's no secret that Steve Alford (left) has had a wretched history in the NCAA Tournament, whether it be at UCLA, New Mexico or at Iowa. His most successful NCAA Tourney run was arguably his 1999 Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State) team reaching the Sweet 16. There was that Sweet 16 appearance as a No. 11 seed in 2015 for the Bruins, but even then, that Bruins team should have not been selected to reach the Big Dance altogether for its weak résumé. For his sake, he better hope that his son, Bryce (right), is on point from the three-point arc to help turn around dad's NCAA Tourney misery. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

No. 7 Dayton

If Dayton head coach Archie Miller has heard the pundits talk about the Dayton-Wichita State game lately, he should have enough bulletin board material for his senior-laden squad. While most of the talking heads are right that Wichita State was severely underseeded, most have already put the Shockers past the Flyers and into the second round. They might want to pump the breaks a little, as they need to remember that Miller has led the Flyers to five NCAA Tournament wins in the past three tournaments, including a Sweet 16 and Elite Eight appearance in 2014. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 7 Dayton

No. 7 Dayton

...and Scoochie Smith (11). Along with guard Kyle Davis, the quartet has as much tournament experience as any team not in the power conferences. Seeing them play against the Shockers should be a whole lot of fun. (Robert Cole/ALOST)

No. 10 Wichita State: Play Even Angrier

Some advanced metrics have this year's Wichita State team as a Top-10 team in the country. Sadly, the perception of the team,
especially without stalwarts Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker, isn't catching up to the analytics. A No. 10 seed for Wichita State is cruel and wrong, which means Gregg Marshall's squad should, once again,
play with an edge - something he and his teams don't shy away from admitting. (Vinny Carchietta)

No. 2 Kentucky

Ho hum, ho hum. Another year, another SEC regular season and tournament title for John Calipari and the Wildcats. Even with UNC and UCLA in the region, the Wildcats and their improving defense are as good of a bet as any to make it out of the South and reach Glendale. (Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics)

No. 2 Kentucky

Ho hum, ho hum. Another year, and another year the Wildcats are being paced by freshmen. De'Aaron Fox makes up half of probably the best all-freshman backcourt in recent memory. Fox has saved his best for last, averaging 22 points and shooting 62 percent in the three SEC Tournament games. (Joshua McCoy/Ole Miss Athletics)

No. 2 Kentucky

Malik Monk makes up the other half of the dynamic backcourt duo,
and I'm sure North Carolina still is shuttering from the 47 points Monk dropped on the Tar Heels in Las Vegas on Dec. 17 (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Yes, We Have Carolina in Our Minds

With apologies to Christmastime and St. Patrick’s Day (the latter being just around the corner), the most wonderful time of the year – especially for sports fans – is nigh, with the 2017 NCAA Tournament officially getting started today with the play-in games taking place in Dayton. Throughout most of the season, A Lot of Sports Talk has had the honor of being able to have a photographer courtside for many of the game’s biggest contests, and in so doing, has managed to take photos of players and coaches from teams that, combined, make up more than half of the 2017 NCAA Tournament field. Hmm…what’s there to do with all of these pictures?

How about creating a super duper photo gallery and fuse it with our NCAA Tournament preview?

Well, that’s exactly what we’ve done, as the next four “Snap Judgments” galleries will all be an extensive display of photos, taken from our lenses, of the major players who make up each of the four regions of the NCAA Tournament. Along with the photos, the captions will provide details on each of the teams highlighted as we preview almost each team in each region and edify you with what you need to know to better familiarize yourself with those teams. At the end of each gallery, we make our prediction as to which team we believe will make the Final Four in Glendale, Ariz.

Our latest preview is of the South Region, where the top seed, the North Carolina Tar Heels, look to win one more game in this year’s tournament than last year’s, which saw them on the other end of Kris Jenkins’ One Shining Moment in the national championship game. That said, the South Region might be the most difficult of the four regions, with No. 2 Kentucky and No. 3 UCLA possessing the talent to match up with the Tar Heels man for man. All that, and the No. 4 seed, the Butler Bulldogs, have the pedigree that you can’t ignore, and finishing second place in the Big East, as the Bulldogs did, is no easy task. Middle Tennessee, last year’s Cinderella when the 15th-seeded Blue Raiders upset Michigan State, is now a No. 12 seed, and Minnesota will have to deal with trying to not be that No. 5 seed that routinely gets bumped out in the first round.

We would not have been able to entertain this story idea without the yeoman effort of our photographer Robert Cole, who snapped almost all of the 32 pictures in this gallery. Special thanks also go out to the husband-and-wife photographer duo of Tony and Cassandra Hoose from Cant-Miss Photography, as well as New Jersey based photographer Vinny Carchietta, whose work is also featured in this gallery. Note: Not all teams are represented with a photo, so our apologies if your team isn’t a part of the gallery. That doesn’t mean we don’t have love for you. More often than not, that means we weren’t able to make it out to the school’s location to have a photographer present to shoot them. Pictures that were not taken my A Lot of Sports Talk but featured in the galleries are noted in parenthesis at the end of each caption.

Keep refreshing this page over the next couple of hours, as we will roll out previews of each of the other regions over the next few hours. Earlier today, we released our preview of the East Region. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures.

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Read about your favorite sports - and cover them in person as well! Long-time ESPN Magazine reporter Adesina O. Koiki, along with various contributors, covers any and all sports from coast to coast, delivering interviews you want to hear with athletes, coaches and journalists. Join us!